Even Super Heroes Are Human

When I was a kid, I hated super heroes. All of them: Spider Man, Wonder Woman, the Green Lantern. For some, the reason was obvious (like Aqua Man. Let’s face it, all he did was talk to fish), but the others were for something simple. They were all just human.

Let me explain. As a kid, I needed super heroes to be just that: super. Non-human. I didn’t want Bruce Wayne to slide down a pole to be special. I wanted to know that being “super” was something that humans just couldn’t live up to.

Super heroes couldn’t be human. I was human and couldn’t accomplish anything more than polishing off a pint of ice cream in a single bound. How could I be special? “Fat Girl” wasn’t a super hero or special in any way.

Over the last few years, though, I’ve been proving myself wrong. I lost 70 pounds, and kept it off 2-½ years. I finished a marathon and have become an athlete (and please note, no quotations around the word athlete anymore). Mild mannered “Fat Girl” may not have a phone booth like Superman to change her clothes, but I slip on a pair of running shorts and some sneakers, and suddenly I am “Fit Girl”, able to scale the Harlem Hills of Central Park without even breathing hard.

But like every super hero, I have my own Achilles heel, my own kryptonite that can strip me of my powers. The problem is that I don’t have one specific food or item that can send me in a downward spiral. Simply put, my favorite food is “more”. When I started to carb load the week before the marathon, I was told to eat “more”. Hey! My favorite food! That week the scale crept up a little, but that was OK. I was about to run a marathon. The following week, I ate a lot of crap (my second favorite food): barbecued spare ribs, ice cream, my first muffin in over three years. The scale went up a bit more, but that was OK. My body was healing.

The weeks continued to come and go, my weight continued to creep up, just a little bit at a time. I got on the scale, but barely paid attention to the numbers I saw, numbers I haven’t seen in over two years. I still worked out, but without a coach to report in to, I definitely scaled back on intensity. In the back of my mind I pictured a knock down drag out battle between “Fat Girl” and “Fit Girl”, where Fat Girl had Fit Girl tied to a conveyer belt headed straight towards a rotary saw.

Friday is my normal weigh in day at Weight Watchers. When I woke up the day after Thanksgiving, I told myself I didn’t have to go to weigh in. It was a holiday after all, and I knew the number wouldn’t be good. But, my husband Wil has a great line that I think of regularly: “when you don’t WANT to do something is when you HAVE to do it.” I didn’t want to get on that scale, so I knew it was the first thing that I had to do.

When I got to Weight Watchers, I took a deep breath, and got on the scale, silently willing for my “Fit Girl” body to somehow leave a pound or two on the floor next to my shoes I had removed.

I’m not giving you my number, but let’s just say that I was so far over my goal weight that the woman weighing me in did a double take. I went and sat in a chair in the meeting room, pretending that I was still the super hero that everyone sees in me. But I knew I wasn’t. I gave in to my own version of kryptonite, and I failed.

Something weird happened, though. In years past when I was upset with the number I saw on the scale, I drowned my sorrows in my two favorite foods – that’s right: “crap”, and “more”. Not this time, though. Super heroes are human, and so am I. I’ve screwed up recently, choosing potato chips over eating healthy, and easy workouts over hard ones.

But then something happened. I thought about the people in my life who see something in me. Wil, whose favorite hobby is helping me to reach my potential, and my kids who are both growing up thinking that all mommies do triathlons and are simply just stronger than daddies.

It’s only been a couple of days since that moment at Weight Watchers, but so far so good. I am already down one of those extra pounds, and my workouts are furious. But that’s OK. I am human. I have to work hard to get what I want, and I have to work even harder to stay where I want to be. And that’s exactly what makes me “Fit Girl” – the super hero.